AC: Assassins Of A Counter Earth
by CerberusTheHunter
Summary: An Assassin finds himself alone without a brotherhood, without family, on a world not our own. He is presented with a contract that will bring him straight into the ancient war, of which all he knows are stories from his late father. Nothing is true, everything is permitted. All original cast. Crossover with John Norman's Gorean Chronicles.


So this is actually a crossover but as is the case with some pulp series there is no category here for it. I like the idea of throwing older series that are fun and do not try to have any real literary value with modern stuff. My other ongoing story combines Neon Genesis Evangelion with The Destroyer series of books.

This story combines the Assassin's Creed universe (with original characters) with… You know what? Read to the end of this first bit, I do not want to prejudice you against this by mentioning a quite divisive series of books. I feel the author of said books ruined a well-put together setting by focusing on his personal preferences to the exclusion of more interesting stories.

As always I love reviews, especially the constructive criticism. I know MY writing is not very good; I have only recently started sharing my work with others. I know I need work and appreciate all the help people give me by telling me what I can do better. If your review is just hate on THE SUBJECT MATTER, I will be posting it in author notes of later chapters along with a score to reflect my cat's emotional reaction.

Oh and I promise promise promise I am only going to use the Animus ONCE in this story, and that's in this prologue. This story will be from the point of view of the characters, not someone reliving a memory

**To be clear, this story will be remaining in the solidly in the "M" category but will not be transgressing into "MA" territory on this site. Given interest, there may be a side story posted ELSEWHERE.**

Prologue

_Preparing to initialize…_

_Initializing…_

_Abstergo Animus 3.51 direct material interface system_

_"Okay, uuuum, I see a white room."_

_"Good good, this is the loading screen you might say. Give us just a minute while we load the test program."_

_"Okay Doctor, just tell me what you need."_

_"Okay Ms. Stone, you should see several objects before you, please describe them, left to right."_

_"Okay, I see a blue plate, a yellow brick…"_

_"Oh yes, programmer's little joke, follow the yellow brick road and such"_

_"Hehe, okay, um, next to that is another plate… oh wait that is a shield, sorry."_

_"Perfectly fine Ms. Stone, please continue."_

_"And a bird, and that's it."_

_"A bird? Seems we need to make an adjustment… one moment… Okay and now?"_

_"Now it's a horse."_

_"Perfect. Loading your avatar. Now this is something of an experiment so don't be too worried about the details"_

_"Should it look like a guy in a white robe?"_

_"Yes quite. Now the ancestor was an assassin, a terrorist if you will. Now his target was a businessman watching this chariot race. What you need to do is…."_

Some time ago, some ways away…

Reyt Mada stood crouched on a rooftop near the three-tier arena. He had tracked his target from Cos all the way to this backwater desert outpost. Unlike the towers of the civilized lands, the buildings here were squared and rarely more than four floors in height. They were made of mud brick and rough stone that made them just as easy to scale.

The arena looked like a miniature of the hippodrome in rome, where Reyt had visited, except for the fact it was still complete and functioning. Reyt watched the crowds streaming through the arched entrances. They were dressed in solid colors, bright robes and placards declaring their side in the competition. These races were not just for sport, they were how the factions of the town competed without bloodshed and the people bore their allegiance openly.

These were the common people, Reyt thought, and they would be herded towards their appointed seats near the ground, close to the track. That is not where his target would be. The privileged arrived early through special entrances, bound for elevated boxes that separated them from the rabble. That is where his target would be.

That was the problem of course. The streets around the arena were at least as wide as the surrounding blocks, too wide to jump, and there were no lines or banners hung between that he could cross. Climbing from the ground was out of the question with the guards posted at every pillar. This wasn't extreme, or even unusual security. These events were supposed to be without bloodshed but that did not mean they always were.

Nothing for it, Reyt decided. He pulled up the hood of his white robes and descended to the ground in an alleyway. Mentor Ezio had always warned Reyt about getting too used to leaping from rooftop to rooftop. It made things too easy. That is why while his comrades were riding ziplines he had been studying the beggars and the street dwellers. They were the truly invisible.

There were not many beggars here, Reyt remembered as he melted into the crowd. They didn't last long.

As he followed the tide into the arena, Reyt made sure to get to the side, moving to the left to slide along the wall. As they passed beneath the arch, Reyt ducked into the first alcove and up a stairway. As expected, two guards in red robes followed.

Exactly what they are supposed to do, Reyt thought and smiled to himself as he walked among the second tier crowds, a mix of local merchants and those with any money and a desire to avoid the lower tier crowds. A few slaves were in the mix, running back and forth with wagers and food orders.

Reyt saw the stairway onto the third tier ahead. Time to lose these two. He began to walk a little faster but continued to flow through the crowd. It was a skill, to move quickly without being in anyone's way. Messengers and slaves knew it well, and Reyt even followed in one serving girl's footsteps when she took an opening he missed.

The stairway was two pillars away now and Reyt made his move, jerking left towards the open arches of the arena exterior, just before the stairs.

The guards turned the corner, expecting to have the man in white cornered now, and found only air. They checked the surrounding alcoves and the stairs leading up and down and found nothing. Where they did not check was the pillar façade Reyt had swung out onto and with a hop ascended to the top floor.

As Reyt began checking boxes, the race began and gusts of air buffeted the hallway. While the bottom tier where the peasants and laborers sat was closest to the track, the top floor on a small arena like this was closest to the action as the Tarns swooped by.

_"Um, Doctor? I think there is something wrong, I am seeing birds again instead of horses. Big ones racing in the air."_

_"It is a glitch in the new programming, same one you saw in the test program, ignore it."_

_"Yes, doctor."_

"Girl!" Reyt barked at a passing slave in yellow and caught her by the arm

"This one is carrying bets master, if master needs food he can speak to any of the girls in blue." She said.

"No no, you will do. I have a message for Yarta the Gambler, where is he?"

"Box 14 master." The girl replied and Reyt let her go. She scampered off and Reyt cursed himself for his impatience. He needed to find this man now, but there was a good chance she was going to report what happened. All the more reason to hurry Reyt thought as he passed box 22.

He hated the slave trade; he hated the wretchedness it reduced people to. All of these girls, and in the city it was mostly women, were caught in the prisoners dilemma. They may each resist but in a large enough group, one would always opt for petty comforts over ideology. One breaks, and the rest will always assume it will happen, and so they squabble over each other to work against their comrades who resist. Such was the way of the Templars, and it was no wonder they found such comfort here.

Reyt had changed that. The Templars here had become too comfortable, too fat off their riches they exploited from the people. They had forgotten their kind's fears of Reyt's people, the Assassins. He had hunted them, all of them, chased them to their lairs and cut out their throats and this was the last one. Yarta the gambler, a pig of a man and the pigs here, tarsk as they called them, were a damn sight bigger than back home.

Yarta moved coin for the Templars, hiding the transfers in his gambling fortune. Normally Reyt would have gone after such a man first, but he had been slippery for someone the size of a carriage.

Reyt came up to box 14. A curtain had been pulled across the door and Reyt could barely peek through the sides. It was crowded. There were at least 4 others in there with the pig, tarsk, whatever. Probably guards.

Reyt considered his options. He could knock and use the answerer's body to push his way in or put a blade in his throat and combo to the next one. Or he could tear the curtain off the rod with his hook, or…

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a flash of red to his right. The girl must have talked quick, he thought. A check to the left found more guards. Oh well, haste frequently leaves no room for artistry.

Reyt grabbed the curtain rod and pulled down hard, easily bending the brass tube that then slid from its mounts. He threw the cloth to at the closer group of guards, the ones on the right. Two bodyguards inside turned to receive hidden blades to the throat and their bodies thrown backwards to block out the door. A kick to the chest sent a final guard over the banister and into the second tier crowd as the tarns came back around.

The wave of air that followed the racers' passing blew back Reyt's robes as he grabbed the only other man left beside his target, looks like he had interrupted a meeting. He threw the man towards the door, sending him into the guards and giving Reyt another precious second.

All that was left was the Yarta the tarsk, who was reaching into his blue and gold robes. Reyt drove his left hand, and its blade, through the fat templar's forearm and into his belly. The guards were shoving into the room now, no time to interrogate him. Why did it always work out that mentor Ezio had so much time to talk to them?

Wait, the nearest stairwell was at least fifty feet back, maybe… Reyt looked up at the guards, who had put away sticks and were drawing knives.

Oh well, he is the last one. If you got to go though, may as well be in style.

Reyt hauled the templar up and put him between the guards and himself. His hidden blade twisted in the man's arm and gut, keeping the arm pinned and causing him to scream in pain. "Nobody move, he is coming with me!"

The guards laughed until Reyt withdrew his blade, traded it for the hook and threw fat man over the balcony along with himself. Reyt had been worried for a moment that such an impact may kill someone below, but the sea of spectators had parted after the first guard went over.

Reyt's landing was cushioned by the pig man. The pig man's landing was not, but Reyt found he yet lived. His mouth even looked intact.

"Everything you know Yarta, and I make this quick."

Yarta the gambler gurgled and spat blood and the sick sound that followed passed for laughter. "If you knew anything at all, you would not be asking me, assassin. We will survive, the home stone is safe and you travel a path that ends at a cliff. Gor will belong to the templ-."

Yarta said no more, due to his sudden acquisition of a new hole on each side of his neck.

The world began to fade to white as Reyt leaped down to the first tier of the arena to escape.

_"What the hell…"_

Emily Stone had felt Reyt Mada's movements through the direct feedback of the Animus, in a distant, sluggish way. She felt the needle jab into her arm in a very real, sharp way and then there was nothing.

"Good, good, very good. Shapiro, see that Director Gramatica is informed we have succeeded… And get rid of her."

"But Dr. Smith sir, her father is-"

"I don't give a damn who her father is, Shapiro, get rid of her!"

Some time later…

"H-hi there fellas, just one more."

"We are only aware of eight, why more now?"

"Late arrival, that's all. You want her or not?"

…

"Well?"

"We will take her."

"Since she wasn't part of the agreed upon shipment, there is a matter of payment you know."

"Of course. Otar, see the man is paid."

End

…

So yeah, this is a AC/Gor fic. Gor gets a lot of hate, some of it deserved, some of it should be directed at a wider fandumb than the stories themselves. A lot of it should be directed at John Norman's writing style.

John Norman, the author of the Gor series of books overfocused on the system of slavery present in the cultures of Gor. He stated several times that only about 3% of the human population was enslaved at any given time, but by the way he wrote you would assume it was most of the female population. I believe this was to the ultimate detriment of the series because the setting itself is quite well put together in my opinion. Just the stories told were told badly and focused on only one part of the human culture. His writing was also really annoying at times and he had some really weird ideas about female psychology.

I will not be writing in the way Mr. Norman has. Rather, think of this as more of an Assassin's creed story set on Gor. Slavery does exist, but it is part of a wider background culture. That culture, sometimes even with the slavery, reflects a culture similar to the Levant in AC1 and much of the world throughout history. Several things we as modern players disagree with happen in the AC games, but we still have fun, and ultimately that's what this story is about.

As I said before, I appreciate all reviews and I really hope you enjoyed this prologue. Look for further chapters uploaded not on a schedule but as they are complete.

Also repeating myself here, but if you just don't like Gor, hey that is cool too, but if that is the substance of your review and its just pure vitriol, I will be sharing and scoring your review. 'Cause it's not really a review. It's just hate. Don't be a hater, that is not cool.


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